This blog looks at the insurance industry's knowledge of the harmful health effects of exposure to asbestos and other related topics.

February 2012

February 27, 2012

As mentioned in the blog entry, The Life Insurance Examiner 1888, a book written by Dr. Charles Stillman, an examining surgeon for the Travelers Insurance Company, includes in the appendix, statistical charts taken from a treatise entitled, System and Tables of Life Insurance, A Treatise Developed from the Experience and Records of Thirty American Life Offices, Under the Direction of a Committee of Actuaries. The treatise was authored by Levi Meech, the actuary in charge of the endeavor.

The thirty insurance companies include, Aetna Life Insurance, Continental Insurance Company of New York, and the Travelers.

According to the preface of the Treatise, the origin of the collection of the statistics dates from the re-organization of the Chamber of Life Insurance in 1873. A circular dated March 16, 1875 was sent to all life insurance companies in the United States and stated in part that, “The Chamber of Life Insurance has, through its Executive Committee, appointed the undersigned a Committee upon Mortality Experience, with instructions to procure from every American Company willing to furnish it, their experience in full up to a recent period.”

The statistical topics include, “the general mortality among insured lives” and “a classification of the causes of death, in general, by locality, and such other special relations as may be deemed advisable hereafter.”

The preface concludes with this statement, “The work has been nearly six years in progress, under a single direction of large experience; and with favorable conditions, has thus resulted in an authentic standard for reference.”

The Treatise is divided in two parts, Part First, Elementary Observations and Tables includes a division entitled Medical Statistics. The Part Second, Life Annuities and Insurances includes a section entitled, “Probable Life in Europe.”

This insurance industry collaboration was published in 1881 and revised in 1886.